Alibaba stock slides as revenue misses estimates despite strong cloud, AI growth

Investing.com -- Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA) reported a 3% rise in quarterly revenue, driven by robust growth in its cloud computing and AI businesses, though the top line narrowly missed analyst expectations.

Revenue for the quarter ended March 31 came in at 243.4 billion yuan, just below the 247.1 billion yuan consensus estimate. Stripping out divested businesses Sun Art and Intime, revenue grew 11% on a like-for-like basis, the company said.

Alibaba shares fell nearly 2% in U.S. premarket trading on Wednesday by 06:03 ET.

Revenue from the Cloud Intelligence Group jumped 38% to 41.6 billion yuan, with growth from external customers accelerating to 40%, and was just ahead of analyst estimates of 41.27 billion yuan.

AI-related product revenue reached 8.97 billion yuan, marking an eleventh consecutive quarter of triple-digit year-on-year growth, driven by rising adoption of public cloud and AI products.

China’s e-commerce sector got a boost in the quarter from a fresh round of government subsidies encouraging consumers to trade in electronic goods. Revenue in Alibaba’s domestic e-commerce business came in at 122.22 billion yuan, ahead of the 119.85 billion yuan analysts had forecast.

Alibaba’s board approved an annual cash dividend of $0.13125 per ordinary share, or $1.05 per American depositary share, payable to shareholders of record as of June 11.

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